Should You Stop Weighing Yourself?

What is the #1 worst tool for weight loss? Some of you may say the oven, others the fast food drive through or the well intentioned neighbors who bring you treats.

But none of those are NEARLY as damaging as the scale can be. That bathroom scale just sits there with an invitation… “stand on me… I DARE you!” and you can’t resist. You have to know right now what it will tell you next, and that will determine whether you have a good day, or a bad day. Not only that, it will tell you what you can and can’t eat that day, keeping you in a perpetual state of confusion.

I used to have daily conversations with my scale… and those conversations determined the rest of my day. If the scale told me it was a good day, it was. I felt optimistic, I believed my clothes fit better, and I worried less about how others saw me. I would also feel more relaxed about my eating, eat more treats than I really even wanted thinking, “it’s ok, I’m on the right path anyway”. But if the scale told me it was a bad day, I believed it too. I felt sad, depressed, self conscious. I would also be “super strict” about my eating and deprive myself. This just set me up for failure in the future, and I would unconsciously and uncontrollably overeat the next time I ran out of self control or had a “good” day.

One of the best things I ever did was throw away my scale. Within a month, people were commenting on how good I looked, although I had no answer for why. 6 weeks after the scale was gone, I was at a friends house, and checked my weight…. to my surprise, I had lost 10 pounds.

Now, years later and many clients later, I realized what happened in that crucial moment for me. Once I could no longer judge myself based on a number on a digital display, I was able to take the energy that would have been spent dealing with artificial emotions (both negative and positive) and apply it towards my awareness. This is awareness of what I was eating, how I was treating my body, and what my body was asking for… without judgement of whether or not it would change that arbitrary number.

That was a powerful lesson for me: Do not let the scale determine your worth or your self care and nutrition choices. If you know what you need to be doing, step away from the scale and follow the plan. The weight will come automatically. Worrying about changes on the scale when you are nourishing yourself well is like checking your bank account every 5 minutes while you’re at work, wondering why you aren’t seeing more money in your account already. Trust the process. Take the focus off of weight for a time and focus on eating healthy foods that are fueling your body right.

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Ashley is a Registered Nurse with a Master’s Degree in Human Nutrition. Ashley loves her son, her husband, and lifting heavy things then putting them back down repeatedly. She is a nutrition, fitness and weight loss coach and blogs at www.youtrition.net.